I first read this book in 2002 and it was the primer that got me into apologetics and philosophy. (Unfortunately, it is better labeled "Apologetics for Fluffy Evangelicals"). From Schaeffer I moved to James Sire; from Sire to Douglas Groothuis, and from Groothuis to Cornelius Van Til. The book is quite exciting for the reader actually believes he will take these arguments and reclaim culture for Christ. Schaeffer offers a stirring vision on how the loss of God affects every area of life.

Unfortunately, the devil is in the details. Schaeffer fundamentally misrepresents every philosopher and group with whom he deals. There is no intellectual rigor whatsoever. The prose is often stilted, and one suspects that Schaeffer, as he was notorious for, copied and pasted other philosophers without giving them credit. A few examples (and I am following the reviews of Mike Butler and Greg Bahnsen):

Schaeffer sees himself broadly within the tradition of Cornelius Van Til, but he is a watered down version of Van Til. For all of Van Til's problems, Van Til knew if you were going to press the antithesis, you were going to press it in the right place. Schaeffer fails that because he thinks "The Greeks were okay who got reason right. It was Hegel who messed it up and introduced irrationality." Now, I don't think the Greeks were as autonomous as Bahnsen makes them out to be, but which Greeks are we talking about? Schaeffer doesn't say.

Schaeffer might actually have read Aquinas correctly, when he says Aquinas posited a "two-storeyed" view of God. Schaeffer has been savaged on this point, and while he gives his usual "thirty second" reading of a philosopher, I think he might actually be right. While I agree with Milbank and Gilson that Aquinas did teach a unity in the continuum between reality, I don't see how imposing a Neo-Platonic ontology onto the Godhead really helps Aquinas' case, and the case that Aquinas didn't lead into secularism.

This book is good to get people started in apologetics, this review ends with a warning: if you are going to rely on these arguments to debate "stoners" at Woodstock, then Schaeffer is sufficient. If you are going to debate anyone with more than a semester in the history of philosophy, and you think Schaeffer will help, you will lose badly.